


something good

by wiselyandslow



Category: Friday Night Lights
Genre: F/M, this is how they met i don't make the rules
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:01:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25515421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wiselyandslow/pseuds/wiselyandslow
Summary: She’s strawberry blonde and knows how to hold down a drink. She’s got a perfect little nose and eyes that can start a fire just by looking at you.
Relationships: Eric Taylor/Tami Taylor
Comments: 5
Kudos: 5





	something good

**Author's Note:**

> day 10 of me trying to resurrect the fnl fandom

Eric knows he’s going to marry Tami the moment he sees her.

She’s strawberry blonde and knows how to hold down a drink. She’s got a perfect little nose and eyes that can start a fire just by looking at you. 

For a Texas boy, Eric’s always been a lightweight, but he approaches the bar anyway. He cuts through the throng of other students accumulating around her, chanting enthusiastically among whispers that it’s her fifth shot tonight. 

“Give us another round,” Eric calls to the bartender, a pale, scrawny guy that doesn’t look old enough to work there. And he knows this won’t end well for his head in the morning but Eric’s the kind of guy who knows what he wants and is simple about it. 

The girl turns to him, slamming the shot glass on the counter, narrowed eyes asking, _is that a challenge_? 

He gives her a nod. The rest is kind of a blur. 

As it is, she’s the one hauling his big gangly body out of The Merman way past their bedtime. The spectators have long since retreated to their dorms (having grown bored after he threw up, quite grotesquely, into a peanut bucket), and the bar’s nearly empty. 

Her hair smells like vanilla where his nose is pressed up haphazardly against it. The lights in the parking lot merge together as she adjusts her grip on his waist. 

“You know there’s a path for girls like you,” he slurs out. 

“Is that so?” she ponders, dragging them along the sidewalk, the dorms looking so, so far. 

“Yes, and it leads straight to a… Methodist church on Friday nights at six.” 

She laughs—a sardonic, smart chuckle that he decides he likes quite a lot. 

“I don’t really know if you should be accusing me of irresponsibility when you clearly have the stamina for a glass of wine at dinner once a week.” Lots of big words, Eric thinks. Too many. Who talks like this when they’re drunk?

“Huh,” he grunts out, intelligently.

“At least I know my limits. You decided you wanted to impress a girl, even if you almost killed yourself in the process.” 

Eric straightens out, skin suddenly burning where it meets hers, which is a lot of places, considering she’s been hefting him around like a cross. It’s the kind of feeling where you know you’ve been caught. 

“You didn’t stop me,” he points out, and he’s not wrong about that. 

She doesn’t respond. Just smiles, knowingly. She does a lot of things knowingly, now that he thinks about it. 

“Are you some kind of fairy?”

She raises her eyebrows. “Fairy?” 

“You’re not human. That’s for sure.”

“Yeah, I am fairy. And I don’t normally drink by the gallon full. For your information. Not that I needed to clarify anything to you.” Her accent is suddenly much more pronounced. 

When he doesn’t say anything she continues. “I kind of just got dumped. And I’m pretty sure I failed my psych exam.” 

“Who would dump you?” Eric realizes that in the span of five minutes he has suggested that she is an alcoholic and also dubbed her an absurd mythical creature. This may be the first remotely positive thing he’s said about her. That’s gotta count for something. 

“Some idiot from high school.”

“You’re seeing a high schooler?” He should maybe stop talking but apparently his mouth has developed a mind of its own. 

“No, you prick! We _met_ in high school!” she says, the pitch of her voice reaching new heights. 

“Oh. Well if he dumped you then he _is_ an idiot.” And he’s back. 

She laughs at that. Eric feels a lurch in his stomach but wills the monster in it back to dormancy, at least for now. He’s not going to throw up on this girl. He wonders though, with more than mild concern, if he’ll be a functioning human being by four p.m. tomorrow—or rather today, considering it’s the wee hours of the morning—for practice. He’s already picturing coach’s severe face, the entire team being told to run suicides. 

“So are you gonna do the thing you could’ve done three hours ago and ask me out already?” He turns to see she’s got this shiny, flirty little smile on. Definitely a fairy. 

“Let me buy you a drink,” he quips. 

“Funny,” she replies. 

Eric gathers up whatever sense is left in his brain. Which isn’t much. “Next Friday. Meet me at the Business building, 7 o clock.” 

“Okay,” she says, simply. Knowingly. Just then she nods her head toward one of the dorm buildings, alerting him of her stop. 

She releases her slender hand from the small of his back, which hasn’t had to be there since he gained his footing halfway into their walk, and heads toward the entrance. 

She’s nearly at the door when he realizes it. 

“What did you say your name was?” 

She turns around, seemingly haloed by the lights in the courtyard.  “Tami.”

He thinks that this must be one of the great moments of his life, along with biking with his grandfather by Lake Buchanan and going to his first Cowboys game.

“Eric,” he offers back. “Eric Taylor.”

“Well, Eric Taylor,” she says, “I’ll see you next Friday at the Business building at 7 o clock.”

**Author's Note:**

> because everybody needs a little college coach/tami. idk if i got their voices right, but i just know young eric taylor was probably a total dunce for tami. 
> 
> title from state of grace by taylor swift :)


End file.
